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Space Pilot 3000
"Space Pilot 3000" is the first episode of Futurama's first season. It originally aired in North America on March 28, 1999. Plot Just after midnight on January 1st, 2000, New York pizza delivery boy Philip J. Fry is accidentally cryonically frozen while delivering a pizza to a prank call (I.C. Wiener) at a Cryonics Lab in New York City. He is defrosted in New New York City one thousand years later, on December 31, 2999. After defrosting, he is brought to fate assignment officer 1BDI, Turanga Leela. Unhappy with his permanently assigned career of delivery boy via a "career chip", Fry flees the cryonics facility into the city, with Leela in pursuit. While trying to track down his extremely-great-nephew, Professor Hubert Farnsworth, Fry befriends a suicidal robot named Bender, meets the disembodied head of Leonard Nimoy, and discovers the ruins of old New York. Leela abandons her job in the cryonics facility, and joins Fry and Bender as job deserters. The three find Professor Farnsworth, and he hires them as the new space ship crew for his package delivery service by giving them the last crew's career chips, recovered from the belly of a space monster after one of his suicidal missions. Characters Characters who first appear in this episode are: *Philip J. Fry *Mr. Panucci *Michelle *Turanga Leela *Terry *Bender *URL *Smitty *Richard Nixon's Head *Professor Hubert Farnsworth *Leonard Nimoy's Head Professor Farnsworth's Inventions Professor Farnsworth's inventions in this episode are: *The Relative Box Future Products Future products which appear in this episode are: *Slurm (billboard) *Bachelor Chow (billboard) *Olde Fortran Malt Liquor Future Gadgets Future gadgets which appear in this episode are: *The Probulator *Suicide Booth *Career Chips References *Fry is playing a video game called "Monkey Fracas Jr." at the pizza place, narrating it as he plays. The game starts out as a space shooter similar to Asteroids and/or Defender, then approaches a Saturn-like planet at the end of the level. At that point, the planet breaks in half, and an ape resembling Donkey Kong emerges. The ape throws barrels at the spaceship and destroys it. The game's name itself is a parody of Donkey Kong, Jr. *Fry's narration is a parody of the opening narration that appeared in both Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation. "Space; The Final Frontier..." becomes "Space; It seems to go on and on forever...". *When Fry is frozen in the cryonic chamber time is seen passing outside the window until the year 3000. New York City is leveled by aliens, rebuilt as a medieval city, leveled again by aliens and rebuilt as New New York. This is a parody of the scenes in the film The Time Machine based on H.G Wells' novel when the inventor pushes the lever forward on his Time Machine and sees the world, and time, moving forward very rapidly. *When Fry walks out of the lab, an ad on a taxi behind him reads "Got protoplasm?", a reference to the series of "Got Milk?" advertising slogans. *During Fry's trip through the pneumatic tube, he passes the three eyed fish Blinky from The Simpsons. *In the bar, Bender drinks "olde fortran malt liquor". *When Fry knocks over Richard Nixon's head, he says "You just made my list", a reference to his Enemies List. *The two policemen who try to arrest Fry at the head museum are using weapons which visually are similar to lightsabers used in the Star Wars film series, however they are functionally more similar to nightsticks. *In the ruins of Old New York, the Chrysler Building is lying on the ground. This may be a reference to the film Armageddon, in which the top half of the Chrysler Building is broken off by a meteor. *Just before the theme song begins music similar to the Star Trek theme song is played. Foreshadowing on the floor.]] *Before Fry falls into the freezer, a scene shows a strange shadow cast on the wall behind him. It is revealed in "The Why of Fry" that the shadow belongs to Nibbler, who intentionally pushes Fry into the freezer as part of a complex plan. This is proof that the creators of the series always had the idea of Nibbler's importance from the very beginning. However, The Why of Fry shows in the same scene Fry's own shadow alongside Nibbler's indicating a subtle yet ultimately-profound change in the timeline. *During the countdown scene at the end of the episode (in the year 2999), France is shown, yet the inhabitants there use the English language instead of French. It is assumed that French in the future is a dead language; this idea is supported in a later episode where Professor Farnsworth invents a universal translator that can only translate into "an incomprehensible dead language". *Fry's full name can just be seen on the computer screen when Leela is assigning his career, but his first name is not spoken in dialogue until "The Problem with Popplers". *At the very end of the episode, Professor Farnsworth offers Fry, Leela, and Bender the Planet Express delivery crew position. When prompted about the last crew, the Professor says "Oh those poor sons of B...B-But that doesn't matter now, the point is I need a new crew!". The Professor then produces an envelope labeled "Contents of Space Wasps Stomach" which contains the necessary career chips. This alludes to The Sting where the crew (Fry, Leela, and Bender) visit the hive of a swarm of space bees to collect honey, and the fate of the previous crew is revealed when the original Planet Express Ship was found with the black box intact. Trivia *The countries and their cities in the first countdown scene appear in this order: New York; Paris, France; Rome, Italy; Cairo, Egypt; Greece; China; India; a tribal village in Africa; Tokyo, Japan; and the entire Earth. *While Leela is looking for Fry in the head museum Matt Groening's head is shown on one of the shelves. *The countries, their cities, and places in New New York in the second countdown scene appear in this order: The Planet Express spaceship; New New York, New New York, USA; Cairo, Egypt; Paris, France; an alien home; the Applied Cryogenics lab in New New York; the Head Museum in New New York; and the Planet Express spaceship *Originally, the first person entering the tube network declared "J.F.K., Jr. Airport" as his destination, a pun continuing the idea that in the future, New New York would have similar landmarks that were in old New York City. This was inspired by the flurry of streets and institutions across the United States being named and renamed after his father, the Former and Late President John F. Kennedy, shortly after his famed assassination in 1963. However, after John F. Kennedy, Jr.'s death in the crash of his private airplane, the line has since been redubbed on all subsequent broadcasts and the DVD release to "Radio City Mutant Hall", a line which is inconsistent with the series' describing mutants as underground; however, the building could just be called "Radio City Mutant Hall" and not have anything really to do with Mutants being allowed to go there. The original version was heard only during the pilot broadcast and the first rerun a few months later. *As Bender and Fry escape from the head museum, shortly before entering the remains of Old New York a scrawling on the wall reads "Venusians Go Home" in Alien Language 1. *As Fry is going through the tube in the first episode of Futurama, Blinky of The Simpsons makes a cameo. Goofs *Although Fry entered the freezer at midnight on January 1, 2000, he wakes up early on December 31, 2999. There are many different explanations for this, the simplest being that the freezer clock is not accurate enough to accommodate a thousand years. A more complex (and more likely) argument involves the difference between a Gregorian year (which averages 365.2425 days per year) and a tropical year (which averages approximately 365.2422), leading to a discrepancy of 0.3 days or 7.2 hours... placing Fry's "awakening" at 4:36pm, December 31, 2999.